The respondents to this survey were relatively young. 61% were between 19 and 30 years old, and another 28% were between 31 and 40 years old. The older the age group, the fewer respondents – this makes sense, given the rise in interest in comics in recent years. Only one respondent reported being younger than 19 years old.

§ Speaking of women working in comics, here’s Trina Robbins speaking on Nell Brinkley at the Fantagraphics bookstore.

§ The latest Manga Moveable Feast is on, covering LOVE HINA,Ken Akamatsu’s prototypical “harem Manga” which was one of the biggest hits of the early days of the manga boom.

§ David Wasting-Paper writes in to note that he has conducted 244 interviews with creators on their working methods. The latest is Scott C. Campbell, speaking of whom, much tasty art like the above in the link.

§ The Browser interviewed the great Ben Katchor on the history of telling stoires in pictures:

Theatre is the first place where an image and words were put together. Words were joined with a stage picture or physical acting. Picture stories were an antique technology used to record theatrical events, but then the development of theatre and picture stories diverged. When cinema was invented, there was a way to record theatrical events with photography, so live theatre took another direction. But picture stories go back to the early techniques of recording.

§ Tom Spurgeon’s interview with T. Edward Bak , in addition to profiling the cartoonsits, includes information on a comics show in Russia, of all places.

BAK: Boomfest. It’s a pretty amazing festival. Me and Julie Doucet were the only North American cartoonists, but here were so many fantastic European artist and Russian artists who were invited and who participated. There was a Hugo Pratt exhibition. A lot of great stuff that was exhibited and presentations for like a month. There was something going on every day. It was all because of this guy Dmitry Yakovlev. He’s the guy that does all of it. He organized the whole thing. He’s a publisher. He just published the Russian translation of Epileptic, which translated into something like Spiritual Malady, I guess. They didn’t want to refer to it as a disease. He’s the organizer. Joe Sacco‘s been over there a few times, I think two times, maybe. José Alaniz, I don’t know if you know that guy, he just wrote a history of Russian comics out from the University of Mississippi.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.